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But Tesecum continues to live with the injury. He has partially recovered, says he has forgiven Bodden but needs help from Social Security to get better. Daniel Ortiz reports:..

Daniel Ortiz reporting
74 days after he was savagely chopped in the face and the head by his co-worker, 40 year-old Michael Tesecum is struggling with the medical care required for him to recover from the injury to his right eye. The machete attack damaged it, and if he doesn't get surgery soon, his health could be in serious jeopardy.

Michael Tesecum - Chopping victim
"Right now it's still traumatizing to me. I could have died, this guy wanted to kill me for no reason. I was surprised because that guy is a cool guy. I don't know what provoked him. In the tribunal meeting that we had there I asked him if he thinks I deserved it, he said 'no'. I moved beyond that, I forgave him. All I want is to live now."

He remembers the December 18 attack like it happened just yesterday. He said that he was attacked because he removed the gentleman's bag off his seat.

Michael Tesecum
"My supervisor Pedro Castillo told us that we will be moving to a next location, so they took us from the location of Carry Street and Euphrates Avenue. The only thing I'm guilty of is removing the bag. I took the bag and placed it on the other seat on my right hand side so I could have sat down. When I did that, he uttered some profanity words like 'what the f is going on with me' and 'what the f is this and that'. So I said 2 words back to him and told him 'do what you want', then sat down facing the driver, so my back was towards Bodden. I was sitting down and all of a sudden I felt a snap across my head side, so I fell on the ground between the seats. I spun around when I saw him coming down again with the machete. I turned my head, whereby he hit me in the back of my head where my skull is cracked. I heard a co-worker shouting 'what the f is going on with you, you want to kill Michael?'. The co-worker came to me and grabbed me. I wasn't unconscious but I couldn't see. When he grabbed me, he wrapped his shirt around my head. I grabbed his leg and said 'Biggs please don't leave me'. He held me and said 'Michael I won't leave you brother'."

Having endured all that, he's now in a battle with Social Security to try and get a sickness and injury benefit claim approved. They've already denied it. He's appealed it, and is awaiting a decision from their tribunal, but he tells us that he feels that this process is penalizing him for misery he asserts he didn't bring unto himself.

Michael Tesecum
"I filled out an injury benefit form, whereby when you get injured on a job, they're supposed to assist you with your injuries and doctor bills. These people denied my injury benefit claim. I don't know what to do so I appealed it. The reason they denied it was from the statement of some of the witness. I feel like it's unfair. I told them to their faces, I feel like it's unfair because I'm paying social security, so I thought an injury is an injury. I never knew that injuries under social security have guidelines. They were interviewing me like the police. They asked me where was I standing, how far was I from the guy, what I said to the guy, that was like a police investigation. I felt that they were the police. I feel like social security is not dealing with me right, honestly because I thought in my brains, I know I got chopped in my head and my brain was exposed but I know this is true. Social security is not dealing with me right because I don't think the suffering I went through, they would give me a hard time in trying to seek medical attention. That is what I want to do, seek medical attention. I want to get better and go back to work. I want to be normal again, I'm afraid because of my eye and the infection to my brain."

And after all of that, Tesecum is still looking forward with a positive attitude. He shared one of his poems with us, which talks about the deadly effects gun violence and gang life.

Michael Tesecum
"God is the answer, violence is not the answer. You see what happened to me just because a man cannot reason or a man cannot put god first. God is the answer, I forgive him."

Poem:
"Momma cry, her son just died. Every other day you hear a next youth died. Gun men put on mask and shoot at guy's heads. The city runs red, it's more full with dead. Back in the days they killed my boy Omar, I looked around the fence and saw the white car with fire from the nuzzle and smoke from a far. Belizean youths put down the gun, when you kill another youth, you kill a mother's son. Guns burst in the city and the town, gun burst, you killed a next mother's son. Gang bang is finished but crime is higher heights and off of rags and colors, the youths are fighting."

Social Security says basically that Tesecum cannot get an injury benefit because they don't cover fighting and shooting - those are not work related injuries.